Memory: Six tips to master yours

MEMORY is a wonderful gift, but it’s clearly one that came without a user guide. Who hasn’t felt facts slip through their mind like sand through a sieve as they crammed for an exam? At other times, forgetting may be the difficulty, as we struggle to banish the memories of painful events. Thankfully, a growing understanding of the human mind offers many ways to help you make the most of your innate abilities.

1. Hit the sweet spot

When trying to memorise new material, you may find yourself staring endlessly at the page in the hope that its contents will somehow seep into your mental vault. One of the most effective ways of learning for an exam, though, is to test yourself repeatedly, which may be simpler to apply to your studies than other, more intricate methods, such as the formal mnemonic techniques used by expert memorisers (see “Secrets of a memory champion“).

It’s important to pace yourself, too, by revisiting material rather than cramming it all in during a single session. When doing so, you should make the most of sweet spots in the timing of your revision. If you are studying for an exam in a week’s time, for instance, you will remember more if you leave a day or so between your first and second passes through the material. For a test in six months, revision should come about a month into your studies.